What comprises a skill set? We often associate our skill set with the functional skills or expertise required for a specific job, role, or profession. However, this lens is too narrow; it does not capture the full scope of our experiences and relationship with work and career. Our skills, knowledge, expertise, and perspectives continue to expand and evolve throughout our lives.
Our evolving skills develop from every activity and every experience we have. By regularly reflecting on our experiences, we can become more aware of the development and range of skills we possess. This also helps us to identify and define the value of our skill set at different stages of our lives. We can then get more creative and strategic in leveraging this information to access different opportunities, roles, or positions we may want to engage in as our career lives unfold.
Reflecting, gathering information, and identifying and describing your evolving skill set.
Most of us will experience a variety of work roles, even more than one career, in our lifetime, by choice or necessity. Changes to the job market, changes in the types of work available, and changes in how we work are all at play. And increasingly we are told that a flexible and adaptive skill set is necessary for work and careers in the 21st century.
Whether you are a young adult in the early stages of developing your career life, or in mid-career with more significant work experience, regular reflective practice can help to identify the expansion and evolution of your skill set, assess its value, and access possibilities in the current job market.
Try this experiential exercise
Here are some sample reflective questions to get you started:
What kinds of work, volunteer, training, or educational experiences have I had? When I write them out, what do I notice about them? Are they similar? Are they very different?
Which of these experiences stand out for me? Why?
What did I enjoy and why? What kind of experience was this for me?
What was personally meaningful about the job, the role, or the experience?
What did I learn about myself in these different roles/jobs/tasks?
In what ways did I grow personally and professionally from these experiences?
What was valuable about the job or role? What have I carried forward?
What was challenging for me and why? Have I experienced these challenges in other settings? How did I approach these challenges?
What am I noticing about how I work? What do I focus on? What do I pay attention to? What is my attitude towards work?
Can I name and describe some of my natural skills? What am I good at? Do these natural skills show up in every job/experience I have had? In what ways?
Can I name and describe some of the specific skills I have learned in the different experiences I have had? Have I used these learned skills in other settings?
Which of my skills (natural and learned) seem more flexible or transferrable? Why?
What have I learned about certain organizations, jobs, or professions from my experiences? What new perspectives have I gained about the job market or changes to the job market?
Do I have a better idea of how my skills are developing and the kind of work environments I am well-suited for? Are there specific work environments I would like to experience going forward?
Am I a team player, or am I more suited to more solitary work? Do I like a fast-paced work environment that requires me to pivot frequently? Am I more effective and productive when there is structure around me and specific tasks to accomplish?
What expertise, skills, or perspectives could I carry forward into my next role/job? Where do I want to contribute as I continue to build out my career life?
What skills and/or expertise do I now want to develop further? What do I want to learn or be exposed to at this stage of my career life?
What would I like to be focused on day to day? Specific projects or tasks, societal or community issues, working with, assisting, or helping people, leading, or managing teams?
How do I want to work? In-person, out in the field, on a team, independently with some supervision and deadlines, independently, in partnership, a hybrid that allows me to work from home?
Reviewing your answers
What do you notice? Are there recurring themes?
Are you starting to get a clearer picture of your skills, abilities, and interests at this stage in your life?
How have your skills changed and expanded? How would you describe the range of skills you possess at this stage in your life?
Are you starting to notice how you work, what kinds of environments you want to engage in and are well suited for, and why?
Can you describe the value of your skill set at this stage in your life?
What is meaningful to you, what interests and motivates you, at this stage in your life?
What possibilities do you see for yourself? What are you curious about?
Where would you like to start? What would be one step, one action, one decision you could make today?
Reflecting on our experiences and monitoring the development of our skills is an exercise we can and should practice regularly during our working lives.
Need help, guidance, and support with your career life? Career Counselling can help at any stage of your career life. Contact [email protected] for more information or to book a consultation.
